For processing or/and use, individual chips (also referred to as dies) may typically be placed and fixed on a common carrier, for example on a leadframe. For this, a device may be used that first picks a chip and places it on the carrier, then fixes the chip to the carrier. After that, the device may pick the next chip, place it on the carrier and fix it to the carrier. This is a very time consuming process, because each chip is treated individually and because, after the fixing of one of the chips to the carrier, the placing of the next chip cannot be done immediately: air surrounding the chips and the carrier is heated up by the fixing process, and a settling of the air has to be awaited first, otherwise an image taken by an imaging system for determining the target region will be too distorted by the hot, moving air to allow for a precise placement of the chip.
In an alternative method for attaching a chip to a carrier, an intermediate carrier may be used. The chips may be placed top-down on the intermediate carrier, for example on a carrier with an adhesive tape. Subsequently, the carrier, for example the leadframe, may be placed on the chips, i.e. on backsides of the chips, while the chips are held in place on the intermediate carrier by the adhesive tape. Then, the stack (the assembly) of intermediate carrier, adhesive tape, chip and carrier (leadframe) may be transferred to a heated press and be subjected to a hot die attach process for fixing the chips to the carrier.
While the alternative method avoids a one-by-one fixing of the chips to the carrier and consequently may be able to save time, it requires an intermediate carrier. The adhesive tape used to hold the carriers in place may only be used once, in order to avoid contaminations. This may lead to relatively high material costs per carrier, e.g. per lead frame. While such a method may be useful if a large number of chips has to be arranged on a leadframe, arranging a relatively small number of chips on a relatively large leadframe using this method may be cost prohibitive.